The other story should be that we won't really get to play with the Photosynth tech (mentioned in the story) until https://www.google.com.au/patents/US20130100128 expires.
How ist this preventing anyone to use the collinearity equation and bundle adjustment in similiar ways? The whole field of photogrammetry is pretty much build on these foundations which didn't just pop up in 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collinearity_equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_adjustment
Thanks, I didn't know about these.